Dosimetric commissioning of high end features in Radiotherapy Treatment Planning Systems: a proposed update of the IAEA TECDOC-1583 guidelines.

Abstract

The TECDOC-1583 (IAEA, Vienna 2008) proposed a set of test cases for commissioning of dosimetric calculations in Radiotherapy Treatment Planning Systems (RTPS), intended to preventing severe errors in the treatment planning process in a specific institution. This guideline, however, covered typical treatment techniques only. Linear accelerators with high end capabilities, such as IMRT, SRS, SBRT, IGRT and motion management have been installed in many radiotherapy facilities during recent years in Latin America. A new set of test cases, oriented to assess the accuracy of RTPS dosimetric calculations in such high end applications, not addressed in TECDOC 1583, is proposed. Advanced test cases were conceived based on strategy proposed by TECDOC 1583, for assessing main sources of inaccuracy in dose calculations, provided the RTPS has successfully passed the conventional tests proposed by TECDOC 1583. A total of 6 test cases were designed and tested, employing three phantoms and implemented on three different RTPS. Proposed test cases demonstrated being very useful not only for assessing RTPS dose calculation accuracy, but as comprehensive end-to-end verification of the overall process.